Don Doe, Dylan Graham, Sally Smart at Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Dangerous Waters: Three Solo Shows

Don Doe, Dylan Graham, and Sally Smart

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

September 1 - October 22, 2006

The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University presents Dangerous Waters: Three Solo Shows. The exhibition brings together the work of Australian artist Sally Smart, Dutch artist Dylan Graham, and North American artist Don Doe, who share similar concerns about globalization and new identities. Their work is linked by an iconography of maritime themes that simultaneously engage the languages of Romanticism and popular culture.

“Using images of frigates in full sail, flags flying high in the wind, and swashbuckling pirates in colorful costumes, the works featured in Dangerous Waters concern themselves with a different world,” said Andrea Inselmann, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Johnson Museum. “These three artists revive the Romantic spirit seen in the current popular imagination, with pirates symbolizing the subversion of authority and the rejection of accepted social mores.”

SALLY SMART has created gallery-size installations for the past ten years using cutting, staining, sewing, stitching, collage, and photomontage. Her new installation at the Johnson Museum, The Exquisite Pirate (Coral Sea), is the most recent incarnation of a project the artist has been developing since 2004, which began with the question of whether or not women pirates existed, and then uses the image to upset our expectations of sexual roles. Sally Smart was in residence for five days to install her piece at the Johnson, and will speak about her work on Wednesday, August 30.

DYLAN GRAHAM addresses colonialism and immigration in intricate paper cutouts of frigates and maps, metaphors for conflict and refuge-seeking. Graham not only incorporates imagery culled from many folk traditions, his technique itself is modeled on the Mexican folk art papel picado, which in turn is a blend of Asian and Hispanic influences. Cutting paper to minute details involves painstaking craftsmanship and intensity appropriate for the loaded relationships that Dylan Graham illustrates in his installation, Conquests & Endeavors. Dylan Graham will speak about his work on Thursday, September 14.

In his installation of watercolors and paintings of women pirates, Heroines & Hellions, DON DOE critiques the male gaze while addressing complex issues related to authorship. Spoofing kitschy illustration, crossing the boundary between high art and pulp fiction, Don Doe’s work proposes a new sexual identity as it displays a bawdy sense of irony. At once sexist and feminist, real and surreal, unsettling and seductive, Don Doe’s fiercely independent pirate chicks are in control of the male gaze, empowering (most) female viewers while putting (some) male spectators on edge. Doe will speak about his work on Thursday, September 28.

HERBERT F. JOHNSON MUSEUM OF ART

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-4001

www.museum.cornell.edu

Stephen Dean, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY - Volta

Stephen Dean’s Volta
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
November 4 - 20, 2005

The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University presents Stephen Dean’s Volta, a façade projection which will be seen from sunset to 11:00 p.m. November 4 to 20, 2005.

French artist Stephen Dean (b. 1968) is known for exploring the experience of color in his films. His previous work, Pulse, was shown as part of the 2002 Whitney Biennial, and several of his videos are currently on view in “Always a Little Further” at this year’s 51st Venice Biennale.

“Stephen Dean’s videos really expand the definitions of painting in that they are concerned with color via the aesthetic qualities of the social and religious rituals that he chooses to film,” said Andrea Inselmann, curator of modern and contemporary art.

Volta, named after the soccer term for an offensive maneuver leading to a spectacular goal, was shot in Brazil at numerous different games, and begins with a close-up of rippling fabric, pulled away to reveal hundreds of Brazilian soccer fans, like the curtain rising before a performance.

The fans remove their colorful shirts, transforming the sea of bright colors into flesh tones. A fabric bunting is passed hand-to-hand through the cheering throng, then disappears. Fists pump the air to an incessant drumbeat. The viewer does not see any of an actual ball game—just the sounds and colors of the fans in the stadium. Humans, passionate and unpredictable, become the medium rather than the subject. Volta is not about a story, but about rhythm.

Stephen Dean’s work is held in many private, corporate, and public collections, among them the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Collection Jumex, and the Israel Museum. He is represented by Henry Urbach Architecture in New York.

This is the sixth façade projection since 2002 at the Johnson Museum. The previous exhibitions were Janet Biggs and Robert Cmar’s Untitled (September 25, 2001: Floors 75 through 110), Haluk Akakçe’s White on White, Jennifer Steinkamp’s X-Ray Eyes, Asta Gröting’s Parking, and Maria Friberg’s blown out.

HERBERT F. JOHNSON MUSEUM OF ART
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-4001
www.museum.cornell.edu

Albrecht Dürer: The Master Prints, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Albrecht Dürer: The Master Prints

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

October 6 - December 11, 2005

November 2004 marked the end of more than fifty years’ wait for the Johnson Museum’s print collection. With the acquisition of a rich, early impression of Albrecht Dürer’s 1513 engraving Knight, Death, and the Devil, the trio of the German artist’s so-called master prints is at last complete at Cornell. The other two engravings, St. Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514) were given in 1947 by William P. Chapman, Jr., Class of 1895.

Works on paper can only be exposed to light for short periods and must be “rested” for a period of years afterward. This exhibition provides a rare opportunity to see all three master prints together.

“These prints represent the pinnacle of Dürer’s skill as an engraver, and their complex, often arcane symbolism has made them a subject of fascination and debate for almost five centuries,” said Andrew C. Weislogel, assistant curator and master teacher at the Johnson Museum. “They provide a feast of symbols and visual details to stimulate discussion and astonish the eye.”

Although there is no evidence to suggest that Albrecht Dürer created the three prints as a series to be marketed together, as he did with many of his prints, there are several elements linking them together. They are almost identical in size, and each features a skull, a dog, and an hourglass. Dürer  made them during a point in his career when he was focused exclusively on engravings and had stopped making paintings and woodcuts, and the prints have traditionally been grouped and collected together. The prints have long been seen to stand for the three modes of virtuous living—active (Knight, Death, and the Devil), contemplative (St. Jerome in his Study), and intellectual (Melencolia I)—though no specific narrative is present in any of them.

The master prints are accompanied by other Dürer prints from the Museum’s permanent collection.

HERBERT F. JOHNSON MUSEUM OF ART

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-4001

www.museum.cornell.edu